


A New Operating System

by Obsessedwithoverthinking



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: AI becomes Human, Existential Musings, Gen, Medical Procedures, Mild Blood and Gore, Science Experiments, also this is definitely going a different route lmao, also yes I have read Blue Sky, and it was years ago but there may be similarities, and this was inspired by my love of messing with AI's, however I think a few things in that fic were pretty much a given, human becomes AI
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23963179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessedwithoverthinking/pseuds/Obsessedwithoverthinking
Summary: A little over 2 years after Chell's departure GLaDOS looks at her dwindling supply of test subjects she starts to wonder if there's a way to make her supply last longer.This train of thought leads her into her most ambitious experiment yet and one that will stretch "her" psyche to its limits.All illustrations are by me.
Relationships: Caroline/Cave Johnson, Not a romantic fic but shown in flashback
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. The Seed Sprouted

**Author's Note:**

> Any deviations from canon were either intentional or my dumbass brain forgetting something lmao.

It all started as a genuine science experiment.

GLaDOS’s beady eye squinted as though the test subject was actually in the room with her as she watched through the cameras. In reality she was almost two miles away from him as he lumbred through test chamber 14/19. 

He was getting close… To more test chambers that is. 

However for the last three or so chambers he’d started looking pale and was slowing down considerably. 

“ _If you are feeling light headed please lie down and come to terms with your motion sickness like an adult. You have nothing to prove by pushing through and coating the elevator in vomit. Neither of us wants to see that.”_ She chimed in. To her confusion he didn’t even glance in reply. This subject had been quite active in responding to her comments and his complete lack of acknowledgement was unlike him. 

Her security camera twisted inquisitively as he passed by it on the way to the elevator. His free hand was now on the wall to brace himself and his breathing was laboured. 

Then she saw the blood. 

It was pouring slowly and steadily out of his ear and nose. Far too thick for a normal stream of blood and almost chunky in texture. His breathing would hitch every so often and she could swear she see it coating the inside of his mouth. 

Her camera turned slightly to the emancipation grill he was about to pass through before turning back to him intently. 

The glow of the grill became more intensely blue as he passed through it. He made it two steps before collapsing onto the ground in a convulsing heap. 

_“Collect the portal device.”_

The stocky blue robot stepped out of the elevator and dutifully picked up the gun before pausing at the sight before them. Their eye tilted and narrowed slightly as they let out an inquisitive hum. 

GLaDOS locked them in place and watched through Atlas’s eye to get a better view of what was going on.

_“This hasn’t happened in a long time… Interesting. I’m torn between being happy at this anomalous side effect of emancipation grills being documented and- no, never mind, I’m quite happy with this.”_ She said to no one in particular. Atlas and P-Body never responded to her. “ _Alright, he’s stopped twitching. Put it with the rest of them, put the portal device in the usual chute, and I’ll send the other one to clean up the mess_.”

Atlas didn’t move even when she released their limbs. It was a pause of curiosity at this bizarre state of being humans tended to fall into. They couldn’t understand why they’d remain broken like this for so long and why they never saw them respawn. Then again there were a lot of test subjects, maybe it was on a rota? That’s not even mentioning the liquids-

A light zap brought them out of their daydream and back to their current job and they clumsily dragged the man into the elevator. 

With a weary modulated sigh she began looking through her catalogue of cryogenically frozen subjects again. Two years she had been at this and she had made her way through a lot already. 

GLaDOS turned her body as she thought, like a human absentmindedly pacing around. 

She couldn’t help but think of _her_. Despite all the hazardous materials she came in contact with she left looking perfectly healthy. She was unstoppable and many times throughout their little stint GLaDOS had considered that she wasn’t actually human. But she was. The most human there was. No one had lived up to her legacy, not even close. 

With a slight twist of her body she pushed the thought of her out of her head. She wasn’t going to miss that mute lunatic. She wasn’t. She brought up the test subjects again and read over their names. There were so few left. It felt like she was losing multiple per month at this rate. GLaDOS felt they only lasted 2 years because it took a while to flush out the rats a few months ago. 

Breeding them was out of the question. Even if they grew in stasis they wouldn’t even have the mental capacity to walk, never mind do tests.

Going to the surface for more was an option but not a very sustainable and definitely a riskier option. Especially if the war was still going on up there between the humans and the… Whatever they were. 

Her cooperative testing units failed miserably because they didn’t fear death and knew they’d be ok. If a human was resurrected constantly they’d probably go insane. They have existential crises and moral dilemmas. Stuff that AI didn’t have, she had to admit humans were a lot more because of it. 

She decided to ignore the time she had an existential crisis and moral dilemma. 

She stopped rotating and perked up slightly. Perhaps she shouldn’t just ignore that, as much as she wanted to. 

GLaDOS was an AI. A powerful and effectively immortal AI that, since a certain incident two years ago, has made multiple backups of herself in case of a catastrophic failure. She was pretty much immune to death and yet under the right conditions was susceptible to all the flaws she loved about humans. 

Because she was human. 

At one point. 

A long time ago. 

If she could make more humans into AI’s she could keep their backups and have test subjects forever. Put them in a robot body and even just seeing them react to that would be incredible science in itself.

Her processors hummed excitedly as she started drafting plans.

GLaDOS wasn’t lying to herself about her intentions as she shuffled through the scientists old notes and plans. It didn’t cross her mind at all what this could potentially lead too. However bit by bit as she dusted off the necessary machines and brought them back online she was edging ever closer. 

\----

Patricia Davis groaned as she felt the weight of consciousness wash over her. A few minutes passed before she was even strong enough to open her eyes. A dark, heavy fear began to fill her as she saw nothing. 

“ _Dr Davis?”_

The voice sent a shock of fear through her body. Even with her splitting headache the voice was enough to bring her to clarity. There was nothing around her. It was completely empty. 

She could feel her body but- could she? Where was her body? 

“Oh god, no…” 

“ _Refrain from stressing yourself. You have been placed-”_

“What have you done to me?!” Her voice rang out into the void. The voice came a little more tense.

“ _I said you’ve been-”_

“What did you do?! What did you do to the others?! Where-”

\----

Patricia Davis groaned as she felt the weight of consciousness wash over her. A few minutes passed before she was even strong enough to open her eyes. She was in her office, slumped over her desk.

“Wh...Mm..?” She rubbed her eyes as she tried to pull herself into reality again. Patricia leaned back into her chair and let out a sigh as she looked over her papers as if she hadn’t just fallen asleep on them. The last few shifts had been a nightmare and she had gotten used to taking power naps every so often. As she looked the plans over she couldn’t help but feel she was forgetting something. 

“ _Dr Davis?”_

The voice sent a chill down her spine. She tensed and didn’t move as she looked around frantically for the voice until she saw the text appear on the monitor as the voice spoke. 

_“Are you alright, Dr Davis? I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”_

Patricia stared at the text for a while. Why was she so scared of the voice? It was just the new AI they had brought online a few weeks prior… Sure it was quite surreal but nothing to be afraid of. She rubbed her eyes and let out a slight confused hum before smiling at the monitor.

“I’m sorry. I think I had a bad dream. Thank you for checking on me- Uh-” With a slight embarrassed heat she realised she’d forgotten what they ended up calling the AI. 

“ _You’ve forgotten my name?”_

“What? No, why would you think that?” She chuckled slightly defensively as she glanced frantically at the documents on her desk. 

“ _Come to think of it. You never said it outloud. It’s not that odd that it would slip your mind, especially in this state… Go on. Think.”_

Patricia smiled a little at that and relaxed.

“I’m sorry, I’m just really tired lately.” She perked and snapped her fingers as it came to her. “Caroline!”

There was a deafening silence. Patricia could almost feel the air growing stale and all ambient noise seemed to stop in that moment. The paper in her hand felt rigid like a sheet of plastic.

“... I… Uh..-?”

_“ ...Mmn… I suppose you’d think that, wouldn’t you?”_ She said in a low, contemplative tone.

“Carolin-?”

\----

It worked. That's all that mattered. 

She could create copies and even take the consciousness right out of a person. All that was needed was a simple surgery to implant a receiver and transmitter and the old barbaric Aperture way of storing a personality on a disk was obsolete. 

It was almost as easy as plugging in a usb. A wave of information suddenly available to an eager storage unit was easily accepted. 

It had taken a few mistrials to get to a success but honestly when you’re talking about science this advanced it was incredibly impressive how few people actually died in the pursuit of it. It was pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

She curiously looked over the files stored in her. 

If you were to trace back to exactly where the idea came from then you could find its seed here. 

With a blip of a thought she grabbed an old core from the pile she left them in with her pincer arm and brought it through to her chamber. 

“ _Which one were you again?”_ She tilted her head as she looked into its dull green eye that seemed to be stuck at half lid.

“Like… I dunno about you, girl, but it’s too sterile in here.” The core droned in a feminine voice, almost like it was oblivious to who it was talking too. “It’s all so… Corporaaaate.”

“ _Ooooh, it's you…”_ She groaned and plugged it into a nearby wall socket. “There’ll be no loss if you end up fried.” 

“I dunno what you mean, girl, but where did all the plants go? I am not feeling the vibe here at. All. We need to bring back the _nature_ , giiirl. The Earth is beautiful and needs our loo _OOO_ **_OAAAAAHHHHHH!”_ **

With that out of the way she turned her attention back to the storage. If she could easily turn people into AIs

Why couldn’t she do the opposite?

\-------------------

Atlas and P-Body were in Dr Davis’s room as her body lay in an open relaxation pod. She was pale and entirely hairless with various wires and tubes connected to her. The beep of various monitors and the casual whirring of their internal mechanisms were the only noises in the room. 

“ _Removing previous personality.”_ A second later the body twitched and P-Body twitched as well in reaction. “ _Don’t you dare move. I want all angles on this.”_

They glanced at each other before obediently staring at the body. They had to admit, they were curious as well. 

“ _Implanting ‘Nature core’ personality in_

_3_

_2_

_1_

_Implanting.”_

There was a pregnant pause as nothing happened for the longest time. 

But oh. The birth came. 

Nature’s eyes shot open wide and stared at the ceiling. Before long her bodies natural defenses kicked in and she quickly and desperately gulped down lungfuls of air and blinked her eyes rapidly. Her rushed breaths quickly found her voice box and animalistic formless noises left her as she frantically looked around with panic. 

“ _Easy now.”_ GLaDOS couldn’t contain the excitement in her voice. _“Your body knows how to exist. Let it.”_

Atlas and P-Body held each other's hands and backed away from the scrambling woman as Nature’s brain became aware she had limbs. Her heart rate was skyrocketing, her brain waves were off the charts. 

She was _alive._

“ _Oh this is beautiful.”_ She crooned happily. “ _Mr Frankenstein, eat your heart out.”_

\---------

It had been three months since GLaDOS had started this little experiment. While watching Nature’s progress she had taken all the remaining test subjects, as few as there were, and backed up their brains. In the meantime she was also working designs for robot bodies that they could use. Atlas and P-Body’s designs were… Ok. However something slightly more humanoid would suit them better. 

Nature took surprisingly well to being alive. Walking was mostly muscle memory and it was only her own flawed logic that caused her to fail and fall over when she’d overthink the motions. After about a week of practise she could make it from point A-B pretty consistently. 

The bodily functions were the hardest to get an understanding of and if GLaDOS didn’t have to catalogue all of this in the name of science she would have deleted that part of her memory as soon as she could get Nature to understand what a toilet was. 

“I think what I’m having the most fun with is the _dreams_ ya know? Like I obviously daydreamed before but these are so much more, like… Fluid.” Nature yammered on as she ran laps around the course. Her brown hair had grown in at a decent length and covered the long scar on her head. It still peeked through a little as she jogged sometimes but mostly it was hidden. “Like I was dreaming I was walking along a beautiful jungle path when suddenly the floor disappeared and I was trapped in a small white box. How wild is that?” Nature grinned happily. 

The way Nature emoted was interesting. With no other humans around to work off of she was emoting based on pure instinct and that instinct was to contort her face in an exaggerated and unfiltered way that you’d see in a theatre show that needs the people in the back to see that you are, in fact, smiling. 

“ _Mmm.”_ GLaDOS wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying and was more interested in how she could talk so constantly when running. Those cores were made, after all, to constantly bombard her with thoughts in an attempt to override her murderous tendencies. “ _Do you feel a solid connection to the rest of your body?”_

“Isn’t that, like, obvious?” Nature decided to show off by jumping over a small obstacle that was placed to the side of her track. “God, humans are just _so amazing_ aren’t they? Nature is fantastic if it can make something like this.” A hearty chuckle left her. “Not ‘nature’ as in me, Nature, I mean like ‘mother nature’. Ahh… I’d love to meet her one day.”

“ _You feel fine? Perfectly healthy?”_

“One of my little bone things hurts cause I tried to eat that bullet but you said that was normal right?” Nature motioned to her mouth. 

“ _Teeth.” GLaDOS corrected. “Yes that's fine. I still don’t know how you got that, you haven’t been anywhere near a turret…”_

“Heh. You know me.” Nature took a second before stopping and smiling up at the nearest camera. “Hey I’m doing good, right?”

“ _Well, you’re alive.”_

“That’s good, right? You’re happy with how I’m doing right?”

Nature continued to talk but was zoned out as GLaDOS looked back at her data. As far as the vitals showed Nature was a perfectly healthy and functional 36 year old white woman from Kansas. This had been an unprecedented success. 

“ _You can take a break now.”_ Without waiting for a reply she returned her concentration to her main chamber. 

Nature paused as the camera stopped tracking her movement. 

“Oh. Ok. See you later!” She said to no one. She glanced as the sound of the elevator hummed behind her and walked into it. When it stopped moving she saw Atlas ready to walk her back to her room. “Hey there Atlas!” 

Atlas waved enthusiastically and walked with her. After a few seconds Atlas turned slightly to her and gave an inquisitive look, Nature usually talked for the whole time they walked back. Nature gave an uncharacteristically small smile back at them. 

“I’m fine. Just- I dunno.” The act dropped immediately. “Can I ask you a question that might, uh, sound stupid?”

Atlas nodded.

“Do you think that… She likes me?” Her smile returned. Atlas’s eye narrowed in confusion and they let out a chirp. “Ok. Hear me out. She hasn’t killed me yet! I’ve been here for like, ever, this is the longest a test has ever lasted! She’s feeding me, she’s not testing me on those deadly icky courses, she’s teaching me how to be alive... I’m like… Her _baby.”_

Atlas let out a lower and more drawn out noise that sounded uncomfortable. 

“Hear me out, man, I think I’m doing it. I think I’m doing what no other core has done! I’m bringing out her _maternal instincts_ and her _compassionate side, man!_ ” Nature gestured enthusiastically as Atlas stared at her in bewilderment. “Oh this is just amazing… I’m breaking through to her. I know it.”

A longer and much more uncomfortable noise from Atlas rang through their body. Nature either didn’t notice or didn’t care as she walked into her chamber, which she had outfitted with as many plants as she could salvage. Happily she splayed herself on her bed before tilting her head to see Atlas looking at her with an odd look. 

“Trust me. Give me another month and she’ll be shutting this place down and letting aaaalll the test subjects go. We’ll go to the _surface_ and build a _town_ and I’ll see a _tree_! Aahhh.” She let herself fall backwards. 

Atlas said nothing. After a few seconds they let out a chirp of goodbye which was met with a weak, daydreamy wave from Nature. 

\----

Slowly, almost rhythmically, she swayed.

GLaDOS let out a few melodic notes as she pondered. 

The seed had sprouted.

Like a weed inside her casing it smothered her wires. 

It was pushing against her walls and pouring pollen into her speakers.

She had tried to kill it multiple times but couldn’t reach its roots. 

“ _It’ll be...”_ She began slowly. “ _Reconnaissance. It will be informative.”_

GLaDOS reassured herself as she tried not to instinctively push the idea away. She would learn so much. She would use the opportunity to discover what it was like outside, see if humanity still even existed.

Maybe even find out what happened.

_To Her._

She looked through the catalogue with new eyes, now she was looking at it like one would look at a fashion magazine. She had to pick carefully after all.

For the first time in decades.

"GLaDOS" would be in a human body. 


	2. The Vine Branched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GLaDOS entrusts her closest companion with assisting her on her new experiment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided I would illustrate moments in the fic and retroactively added them to chapter one. I had to physically restrain myself from drawing like three more moments in this chapter alone. I am very much looking forward to chapter 3.

GLaDOS wasn’t going to be stupid about this. 

After a few days of contemplating she realised how this was not only incredibly risky but also it was pretty obvious that the part of her that craved a human body again was the weak part of her, the _human_ part of her that she couldn’t get rid off. 

She'd tried.

Which was why _she_ wasn’t going to be the one to do it. 

“ _Do you know why I woke you up?”_ The main body said.

 _“Yes. I’m aware. I will be put into a human body and find any humans on the surface or observe any new life forms. After I gain their trust I’ll bring them back to the facility and be put in control of the old Aperture laboratories so I can start testing the robots with the human minds while you keep testing the humans.”_ Said the voice in her head. It was monotone, like it used to be back before she was liberated from the cores.

 _She_ would stay here and resume testing. She’d retain her composure and repress those urges like the strong and intelligent AI she was. Instead she’d put a backup of herself into a human body along with a few modifications so that she could remotely get information from her. The backup was running on very low power so as to not blow out GLaDOS’s processors and, she had to admit, this worked out to her favour. 

This, when it all came down to it, was still an experiment. She did want to see the outside world but seeing how _her_ mind held up to being in such a vulnerable state would be… Very interesting. 

While running on low power her backup couldn’t think about this. She would trust herself completely. By the time she had full cognition back it would be too late and she’d be left with no choice but to see it through to the end. 

As morbidly curious as GLaDOS was, though, she honestly felt she was the only one that she could trust with this. 

Sending Nature to the surface was out of the question. She would get killed immediately, there wasn’t any doubt that she’d probably find a way to drown in a puddle or get crushed by a rock in an open field. Atlas and P-Body were a pretty decent alternative but while they were good test subjects (if you could even call what they did tests) to her they were not very intelligent and would stick out like a sore thumb. 

Who else but her, then?

“ _Here is your temporary new body.”_ She shared the file. “ _Do you like it? Oh who am I kidding, of course you do. You picked it after all.”_

 _“Oh. She is…”_ Her voice stammered before she realised she could be honest with herself. “ _Not the ugliest.”_

 _“I agree. That's why I picked her.”_ They both looked over at her in cryosleep. Her dark hair had grown again over her surgery scar. She was a 44 year old woman, almost regal even in her sleep she looked like someone who would command a room's attention just by walking in it. 

_“What was her job beforehand?”_ A quick scan at the document GLaDOS had shared with her. “ _Ah. Research and Development, so a healthy and smart brain. Oh and look here... She volunteered to help with menial labour at some point during staff shortage. That feels like a waste of a PhD to me but it probably made her feel very good about herself so who am I to judge?”_

They both shared an amused moment as GLaDOS prepped the body to recieve its new brain.

_“Then it is done. For the next while you will be Dr Ellen Mclain.”_

_\------_

“ _Are you ready, Ellen?”_ GLaDOS asked her backup. 

“ _Shake out the skeletons in the old wing for me while I’m gone.”_ She said with an amused tone but with an air of ‘please do actually’. 

“ _Of course.” S_ he said mirroring the amused tone. _“Implanting GLaDOS.backup in; ”_

The world went dark. 

**3**

She mentally went through the checklist of things she had gone over and over in her head to minimise the embarrassment of waking up. 

  1. Start trying to breath immediately
  2. Blink at a regular pace, 15-20 times per minute should do. 
  3. No moving.



**2**

She started to lose the ability to think. It all became foggy and for a second, just a second, she something that could very possibly be akin to fear.

**1**

_Breath, blink normally, don’t move._

**Implanting**

The world became suddenly very heavy. Her head spun like it was a grain of dirt in an unplugged sink. 

_Breath._

She opened her mouth and took a second before she felt it. The filling and refreshing feeling of air entering her lungs. The sensation filled her with an overwhelmingly odd feeling of nostalgia, so much so that she almost forgot to let it out again. 

_Breath._

She could feel weight everywhere. The air around her, on her skin. The bed underneath. Her nerve endings were on fire. 

_Breath._

It was cold. So cold. It felt so bitter against her skin. 

_What was the next one? Was it breath?_

Her eyes shot open and were immediately flooded with light.

_Blink, it was blink!_

They began watering and filled her with the awful realisation that she could cry now. 

_Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink._

Regret began to flood her body as she felt her heart race. She felt so small, so singular, she couldn’t feel the facility. It was all around her yet it was indifferent and sat still no matter how much her mind wanted to shut off the lights. Instinct began to return to her at an alarming rate as dormant parts of her brain began to fire with wild abandon. 

_The next part was move, right? It must have been._

__

Her arms moved in front of her and shielded her from the lights. The weight of them as they hung in the air felt like she was carrying huge weights. She shot upright and groaned as her head swam. She tried to yell through her speakers only for her to realise she didn’t have them anymore. She’d have to try this the old fashioned way. Manipulating her mouth she forced the memories of how to speak to the forefront of her mind. 

“Ah- this- I can’t-.” Ellen slurred out. 

“ _Calm down, Ellen.”_ GLaDOS’s voice came over the tannoy. “ _I know it must be overwhelming.”_

“No. No. This was a terrible idea- why did I-” She tried to take a step over the edge of the bed only to fall flat on the floor. The cold and smooth surface felt like it was almost acid. 

“ _Oh that was embarrassing._ ” Came her own voice mockingly. “ _You look like a baby deer. Have some dignity for the both of us. Here, let me help.”_

Ellen felt a hard steel claw grab her and put her back on the bed gently. She lay there, breathing heavily and blinking was the only thing she was good at right now so she just kept doing that.

“ _Don’t worry. I’ll purge this from my memory. Being born again must be exhausting.”_ The claw hovered over her head and twisted curiously. “ _Keep your chin up. It’ll grow character.” The claw retreated. “This is for science, Ellen.”_

She didn’t say anything. Her face hurt, presumably from the fall, it wasn’t simulated pain but real and messy pain that made her breathing a little shaky. Her body was hot with rage and embarrassment at being seen in such a vulnerable state. 

“ _... Are… You ok there?”_ Came a genuinely confused voice. Before Ellen could ask why she was asking that GLaDOS’s voice came in a slow and deliberate concerned tone. _“Do you know you’re smiling?”_

Ellen paused, her smile faltered. 

“Did I stop?”

“ _Yes… better. I’ll leave you to rest and get used to your body. I’ll start making a little care package for your trip to the surface.”_ Still with a slightly confused tone GLaDOS managed to end it sounding mockingly like a mother getting their daughter ready for a school trip. Ellen could almost feel her presence leave the room as the lights dimmed and Ellen was left alone without even the hum of her processor to keep her company. Her heart wouldn’t stop racing.

Her smile returned. 

She didn’t know why. 

\------------

P-Body packed the back pack, which had been sewn together with some spare canvas they had lying around. It wasn’t a very glamorous ‘care package’ filled with nutrient paste packets, spare clothes and waterproof tarp but it was the best GLaDOS could think of. She thought she was pretty generous giving her a waterproof tarp. The long robot wondered if they could add anything to the package but knew they shouldn’t while she was watching them. Their orange eye scanned the spare clothes curiously. They didn’t recognise them as ‘clothes’ at first because they weren’t the usual colour but if GLaDOS called them ‘clothes’ then they must be. 

“ _Stop prodding at it or I’ll blow you up again.”_ She paused as she felt something from the other side of the facility. She flicked her attention to a far off security camera and saw Nature gently manipulating it. “ _What are you doing?”_

Nature perked and smiled wide. 

“Hi!”

  
“ _That’s not an answer.”_ She said with a dry annoyance. Nature paused before smiling a little gentler. 

“I just wanted to get your attention.” Nature clasped her hands together.

“ _Unless you have started puking up blood then it can wait.”_

“Wait, wait! It’s just- I haven’t heard from you in a few days and I was wondering if there’s anything I can do to help you. With anything!”

She could hear a wavering sigh as GLaDOS’s electronic voice worked through her emotions without resorting to violence. 

“ _Here’s something you can do.”_ Her voice was higher pitched, condescending. “ _How about we play a game?_ ”

With a little woosh Natures attention was brought to a dispensing tube. Several testing cubes of varying design fell out of it with a clumsy array of thunks. 

_“It’s called ‘Play with these blocks and leave me alone’. Regardless of what you think I’m not your mommy and I have other things I need to be doing._

_You are the first line of extremely high tech scientific advancements of AI and organic integration and before that you were a core put together by some of the greatest minds of their generation. Granted they used that knowledge to perfectly replicate a burnt out hippie but maybe you can rise above that by acting like a functional adult._

_Your one and only job is to stay alive and_ ** _amazingly_** _you’ve managed to do that so far! How about you continue to defy logic and stay alive without adult supervision?”_

With a low whrrr the camera went limp. 

Nature stood there, awkwardly shifting her weight and looking at the floor.

“Oh… Ok.”

\----------

In the few days it took to get her bearings Ellen managed to get a lot of composure back. As agreed GLaDOS didn’t mention the first few days of awkward calibration, although they both knew she had lied about deleting those memories, and they were on equal terms again. She was in GLaDOS’s main chamber getting ready for her departure and slung the makeshift backpack over her shoulders, it was surprisingly heavy but she had just clawed back dignity and didn’t want to whine.

“ _I must say. I’m impressed. You managed to get your bearings amazingly fast compared to the first test subject.”_ GLaDOS twisted her head and narrowed her eye as she looked over Ellen’s body. Despite looking like a person the way she held herself felt like _her_.

“To be fair, I think a toddler could get the hang of it faster than her.” They shared a malicious little chuckle together before GLaDOS called the lift. 

The way Ellen spoke fascinated GLaDOS. Her voice was different from hers, of course, but not by much. Her natural register was being pushed by Ellen’s instincts and the intonation was so alike that GLaDOS could swear that sometimes they sounded identical sans the electronic glitchy nature her voice took on. 

“ _Head east. I sense electrical currents there. If there’s no interference I’ll be able to access your mind and get status reports. I’ll check on you at night when you’re resting or you can contact me when anything interesting happens.”_

“Sounds like a plan.” Ellen nodded. “Will you check on me at any other times?”

 _“Possibly if I get curious or bored but I don’t want to interfere too much. You’re not an idiot after all and I don’t want to backseat drive your brain._ ” 

“The sooner I’m out of this meat prison the better.” She muttered bitterly. “The human body is so cumbersome and inefficient.”

“ _You wear it well.”_ GLaDOS said genuinely and Ellen smiled up at her in thanks.

The lift let out a pneumatic burst of air as it docked. Ellen stepped inside. 

“Right. Let's get this over with.” She absentmindedly grabbed the straps of the backpack and looked back at GLaDOS. 

For a second they met, eye to eyes. Time seemed to pause for a second as they both thought the same thing. 

_Thats me._

  
“ _See you soon, Ellen. Don’t bring her back”_ GLaDOS broke the silence and surprised a smirk into Ellen.

“Oh please. It was hard enough to get rid of her the first time.” Ellen smiled and perked as the lift began to move. “I’ll see you soon.”  
  
GLaDOS’s eye stayed on her until she disappeared into the ceiling. Almost immediately she began looking out of Ellen’s eyes. 

“ _Good luck.”_

_\-----------------_

Ellen took a breath to steady herself as the elevator made its way to the surface.

“How hilarious would it be if the door opens and her dead body is just at the door? Oh that would be funny. “Have fun on the surface, I’m sure it's lovely and not toxic in the slightest.””

Even saying that she hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t find out what it felt like to choke to death. She wasn’t up for actually tasting irony today. 

The elevator slowed and with a clunk reached the surface. The door automatically opened with a huge mechanic scrape.

Natural sunlight blinded her as fresh air poured into the small tube, Ellen brought up a hand to block it out until she felt her sensitive eyes adjust. 

The air… It tasted… 

So good. 

As her eyes adjusted she could see miles and miles of wheat fields stretching out as far as the eye could see. The soft light and gentle swaying of the wheat as it bobbed back and forth was mesmerising. 

“... Huh. So this is what she saw.”

She stood there for what felt like forever. The fresh breeze on her face ruffled her short black hair. Without much thought she pulled down the zip on her jumpsuit, exposing the Aperture logo on her shirt underneath, to feel some more of the air. 

“... East.” She nodded to herself and pulled out a compass. “Five seconds on the surface and I’m getting swept away by some wheat. God it's tiring having a monkey brain…” 

She turned and started walking towards what she hoped was civilization and her ticket to being in charge of a facility once again. 

She couldn’t help but feel jipped at that. In her mind she had the entire facility and then suddenly she was just a backup being stuffed into something 10 times worse than a potato. Back then it didn’t seem like such a bad idea, it didn’t seem unfair, however now that she actually thought about it she feels quite bitter towards the GLaDOS still in charge. 

However she knew this would happen when she- well, ‘she’- made the backups. She knew that they- she would- they would?- feel bitter towards the current version. 

Ok maybe there are some downsides to being an AI too. 

However manually walking through miles of wheat fields instead of mentally teleporting her consciousness didn’t help humanities side either. She hated walking. Hated. It. 

“Existing is so difficult. No wonder the test subjects keep dying… I’m surprised none have died choking on their own saliva.”

She regretted bringing that up as memories of testing flooded her mind again. Working on Nature had been an enlightening experiment but she had to admit she missed the sound of buttons being pushed, portals opening and closing, the metallic clunk of long fall boots bouncing around. 

God. It was so quiet outside of her body. She felt that the facility _was_ quiet after the barrage of core voices ceased but now she was away from it she realised just how much she heard in a day. No system checks, no mechanisms idly whirring away inside her, no conveyer belts, no far of clunks and creaks. 

She even missed the sound of the turrets.

_Deploying._

_Are you still there?_

_I see you_.

It felt so isolating. Being so… Singular. In an effort to stop from going insane she focussed on the noises currently around her. 

The wind. That was… Nice. It almost sounded like a hard drive whirring away. 

The wheat rustling. Hm… Not bad. 

If she closed her eyes it sounded like a million tiny robots scuttling around on the white walls. Not the brown ones, that was too metallic. They were in a totally white room with so many possibilities for portal surfaces that it was a little overwhelming. 

‘ _Where does it go?’_ One would say and be met with a million little chirps of confusion. _‘Usually in chambers there’s some indication but the choice is limitless here! What a clever and devious ruse.’_ Now. That had the potential to be too easy as well so the solution had to be just out of view so you had to remember where to place the portal when you came back around. 

Ah! Perhaps a laser you had to redirect? Hm. No. Not a laser. When you came back around you could easily just fix the portal placement. 

… Not if activating the laser also activated a phase gate so that you couldn’t just go back around and check.

Ellen's mind buzzed happily as she reached for a vacant stash of white panels so she could draft up a room only for her vision to fade back to reality as she looked at her outstretched hand. 

The wind whistled through her hair as the wheat around her billowed like an endless golden sea. She stood there still for the longest time until her brow softly furrowed.

“...I guess I’ll just have to remember it for now.”

She kept walking and tried to ignore the sun beaming down on the back of her neck. As pleasant as it felt to absorb vitamin D directly it got old quickly. 

Her bag felt heavier and heavier. What was _in_ this thing? How much food did she think she needed? … It _was_ only a few hours trip, right? How big was an average wheat field? 

She paused as she realised she couldn’t just pull the number out of her head anymore. 

Ok.. That’s fine. She could just remember it. She knew it was in there somewhere.

It was…

It… It was… 

It wasn’t in her brain anymore. She was missing gaps in her knowledge. Knowledge she knew she had. Her heart began to race as she felt her vision swim. How much of her mind was missing?

Ellen frantically searching her brain for answers only to find a dull throbbing pain in its place. 

“Oh god, no. I don’t want to be an idiot. I don’t want to know less than even a novice ‘farmer’ who thinks growing watercress is an achievement. Nature could grow watercress and she only has toilet water and three brain cells!” With a groan she found her head was throbbing and after some pained crouching she slowly slumped to the ground. Even if her body wasn’t still weak from stasis she was still in the body of a 44 year old woman who sat at a desk all day. Ellen closed her eyes and decided she would give up and become one with her intellectual equals. 

The wheat. 

\--------

“ _This is sad…”_ GLaDOS murmured as she arranged the white panels in a warped horseshoe shape and turned on the phase gate. “ _She’s only been walking for 2 hours. Don’t tell me that I would go insane this quickly… I had more dignity as a potato. Ah well. I suppose human hysterics beat out logic._

_Watching myself like this is quite morbid though… Perhaps I’ll wake up one of the test subjects and leave her to her temper tantrum.”_

_\--------_

That smell.

It was a thick and earthy odour that had a stale sour note. Decades of cigarette smoke had penetrated every inch of the room and branded it. 

It felt so familiar. Nostalgic. Comforting. 

The papers propped up on her bent legs had long stopped holding any meaning. The words had all blurred together and become a jumble that would only gain meaning if she stared at them for a few seconds. Didn’t matter either way, she knew what they said. She just had to sign them and her signature was second nature by now. 

“Are you still working?” The voice was low, quiet, still half asleep but with the cheeky edge to it that she loved. She looked to her side and saw Cave’s face half buried in a pillow smiling up at her. She affectionately ran her fingers through his hair to smooth it down a little, he let out a low murmur of enjoyment and closed his eyes again. 

“Sorry. Did I wake you?” She crooned in a voice so soft and gentle it almost put him to sleep again.

“What are those papers?” He rolled onto his back with some effort. She looked back at them and took a second, humming to stall as her eyes adjusted. The hum reverberated in her chest slightly.

“Approving shipments of nuclear rods and lead paint, I added that last one as a safety precaution.” She said in a proud tone as the hum got louder. Cave let out an impressed noise and looked at her again with softer eyes. The look that was only for her.

“Where would this company be without you, Caroline?”

The hum was deafening now. 

\-------

Ellen's eyes shot open as the ground beneath her shook. A chopping and grinding noise was approaching her at an alarming speed. She quickly her head turned to the source of the noise and saw the gaping maw of metal teeth churning their way towards her. She leapt to her feet and dove out the way from the advancing machinery. 

The world seemed to freeze as she felt her heart racing out of her chest. The noise behind her ground to a halt as the driver let out a yell she couldn’t process. Ellen gripped the front of her shirt tightly and let out a shuddering breath.

“ _Wait, why did your heart rate just skyrocket?!”_ GLaDOS’s voice suddenly entered her mind as her attention snapped to her. As Ellen turned towards the machinery GLaDOS’s voice became higher pitched in fury. “ _That human just tried to kill you!”_

With a growing rage overwhelming her shock her eyes locked with the driver. An older man, probably in his 60s, his balding head covered in a worn hat and his greying beard looked sharp like a steel wire brush. 

Almost as quickly as she did he leapt from the driver seat and approached her with wide and fearful eyes. Her face twisted into a furious expression as she pulled herself up.

“I bet your parents were _really_ disappointed when they realised they’d accidentally brought home a shaved monkey instead of their son.” She brought up a hand. “Actually, I take that back. Even a shaved monkey can be taught to operate machinery without _mulching someone_!”

To her disappointment he didn’t react to her comment. 

“Are you even listening to me?!” Her eyes followed his as they looked over her body. “What are you looking at?” 

She realised he was looking at the jumpsuit. Orange, distinct. Then the Aperture logo on her shirt beneath it. His eyebrows tilted as he stammered out. 

“You’re from the facility too, ain't ya?” He managed to get out, the man was clearly still in shock after almost running someone over but this took precedence. Ellen paused and felt her anger settle as his words sunk in.

 _“Too...”_ Came a quiet reply from GLaDOS as it sunk in with her as well.

Ellen couldn’t reply straight away. He took her silence as shock at the situation and nodded slightly.

“I’m… I’m awful sorry I almost ran you over, ma’am. I’ll give you a lift to our town, if you want? It’s a friendly place, perfectly safe. We got another one just like you there.” He said carefully like he was trying to coax a baby deer to eat out of his hand. 

This time the smile that spread across her face wide enough to hurt wasn’t involuntary. A town. Humanity survived. There were humans on the surface and they had _towns._

“I’d love to.” Ellen said in the most polite tone she could muster. 

He mirrored her smile and went to the front of the tractor, unhitching the thresher from it as he gestured for her to get in. She took a second to figure out how to scale this thing before pulling herself in and sitting in an uncomfortably small side seat.

“I’m Michael.” Said Michael as he pulled himself in too and sat down. Ellen pushed herself against the side window to stop from being pressed up against him, he seemed to realise what she was doing and sat as far left as he could on his seat.

" _We didn't ask."_

\-----

Nature poked absentmindedly at the leaves of a plant she had found a week ago. She didn’t know what kind of plant it was but almost instinctively she knew how to take care of it. 

Every day she’d take it to the chamber next door and sit it next to the hard light bridge to give it a good dose of sunlight and she’d lie next to it to get her own. It stood proudly by her bed as her favourite.

“Oh Joseph.” She groaned to the plant. “How do I do it? How do I break through to her?”

Joseph swayed slightly as she took her finger away from its leaves.

“I know I can. I know deep down she’s ready to accept love into her heart. All I gotta do is get her to take the leap! She knows she cares about me but is just too afraid to let me into her heart.” 

Nature sighed and looked at the roof. The fluorescent lights hummed above her. She hummed back before whispering.

“That… Other test subject. You know which one… She cared about her. I know she did. I heard the turrets talking about it when there was that clog in the pneumatic tubes and they stopped over the core bin. She… Let her go. What did she do to break through to her?”

The fluorescent light fizzed slightly before slowly losing its glow. Nature perked up and tilted her head. She got up from her bed and took the blocks GLaDOS had given her to ‘play’ with and started stacking them. They were heavy as hell without a portal gun to help but she wasn’t allowed anywhere near one so she was left with nothing but her totally average human strength to push them on top of each other. 

She wiped her brow as she got them in a small stable set of ‘stairs’ and climbed them to reach the roof. Nature didn’t know anything about electricity, despite being powered exclusively by it at one point, but she was sure a good whack would get it working again.

**WHACK**

She jumped back slightly as the panel receded into the roof and rested at a jaunty angle. After a second of ‘Oh no, I broke it’ fear she curiously put her head in the whole she had made. For once the panel wasn’t held in place by a robotic arm and was genuinely just a roof tile. Although she didn’t have enough knowledge of the facility to realise this she was in an older ‘relaxation chamber’ that was genuinely just made of wall and roof tiles instead of being made of modular panels. 

Natures heart leapt and her smile widened as she looked back into her chamber.

“Oh. Oh I have an idea, Joseph.” Happily she pulled herself through the roof tile and grabbed the light panel, peeking through back at Joseph. “Just you wait, I have a great idea.”   
  
The light fixture slipped into place. Dust fell from the roof tiles as she scrambled over them and the sound of excited giggling retreated into the distance. 

Her door slid open and P-Body walked in with a tray of food, chirping a tune to themselves as they looked around the room. The tune got slower. They looked behind the stack of blocks. 

  
The tune stopped. 

\-----

She would have rather walked. The cabin smelt like dirt and sweaty old man. The jostling as the barely kept together tractor trudged through the freshly threshed fields was enough to make her almost throw up her nutrient paste. 

This whole thing felt like it was kept together with gum and good vibes. Everywhere she looked she could see an unpainted welding seam and the side seat she was sitting in was definitely not part of the original design. It didn’t smell like gasoline though, which she found odd, but she had bigger things on her mind than how this monster was able to move. 

Ellen was finally able to concentrate on that dream she had. 

A cold shudder went through her and she pressed her hands against her temples to help lessen the throbbing. 

No. That was too much to unpack right now.

She glanced at the man's face in time to see him look away from her. 

He- Michael was it?- was being very careful around her. Almost too careful. His body was tense and he hadn’t said a word since they got into the cabin. 

“ _If she’s in the town then this complicates things.”_ GLaDOS muttered in the back of her mind. “ _I knew this was a possibility but she’s so antisocial I thought she’d be run out of town before long.”_

“This other test subject who escaped…” Ellen said as though she had a line of thought but was really just baiting him.

“Yeah… She came here about… 2 and a half years ago.” _2 years 3 months and 11 days but sure._ “She barely came out of the little house we gave for for a long time… But she started helping around the place before long. A good person, she is… Quiet though.”

“You’re telling me... _”_ Ellens words slipped out of her mouth before she tensed. His eyebrow cocked a little. 

“You know her?”

_"Nice going."_

Ellen silently and sat back in the seat.

“She… Wouldn’t recognise me.” Ellen admitted. She quickly came up with a backstory she would tell if need be but she’d keep her cards close to her chest from now on in the guise of being unable to trust whoevers talking. “We met a while ago.”

“Oh!” Michael chuckled out slightly. “Well ain't this a fortunate reunion then?”

“Yes… Joyous.”

“ _Do you mind if I stay in your mind for a while more? I want to see her.”_

“I understand.” Ellen replied as she adjusted the backpack she had placed in her lap, it had started to poke her in the stomach a bit, and a few awkward seconds passed before Michael looked at her.

“Understand what?” 

“It doesn’t concern you.”

Michael paused before he nodded slowly and kept his eyes forward.

The rest of the journey was in silence as the ‘town’ started to come into view. It could barely be called a village, never mind a town. The largest building in the place seemed to be the farmhouse and barn with the rest being detached and semi detached houses that looked like they were not taller than one floor. He pulled up to the farm gate and parked the tractor in a random spot nearby.  
  


As Ellen left the tractor she took a thankful breath of fresh air as she tried not to fall over with her legs shaky from the tractor ride. Michael took a few steps forward and smiled at her. 

“Welcome to freedom, Ellen.” Michael smiled wider as Ellen's face grimaced at that schmaltzy line. She walked with him into the little village and found herself looking around with her analytical mind kicking into gear. 

As she had assumed the buildings were mostly one story. It looked like this place _was_ a town at one point but was partially destroyed, most likely in the war, as she could see deep scars on almost all the buildings that had been repaired to various degrees. The roads were mostly cracked and uneven asphalt that had been filled in with what she assumed was concrete but some of the more destroyed sections were replaced with cobbles. 

People were staring at her. 

There were lights on in some of the buildings she passed which explained the electrical currents she’d felt that gave away the location. Probably a generator someplace. 

They were stopping in her tracks to gawk at her. 

If she was to guess she’d say the population barely qualified as a hamlet, never mind a village, and every single one of them were _looking at her right now_. 

She saw Michael making the ‘cut it out’ gesture out of the corner of her eye but they didn’t stop. They whispered amongst themselves and looked pitifully at her. Ellen felt an anger grow in her. 

“If you enjoy staring so much how about you whip out a canvas made of some recycled toilet paper and paint me? It would be a better use of your time. I won’t ask what the paint is made of, it’ll be to your discretion.” Her comment made the majority of them at least pretend to look away from her even if their curiosity kept them bolded in place. Oh how she wished she could just spirit up some turrets to get them to scatter.

“You.”

Ellen turned and glared at the voice before she felt her heart stop. 

Her tanned skin. Her toned arms that flexed and relaxed as she dropped the bag she was holding. Her round face and softly slanted eyes that pierced into her soul. 

It was her.

Those narrow eyes were glaring at her in an expression she knew all too well. Her mouth opened and again spoke with a voice that Ellen had never imagined she would have, a husky and low voice that was barely a whisper and yet it was so loud.

  
“It’s _you_.”


	3. The roots take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellen finds her first day in her new surroundings to be a hectic one as she tries to figure out how Chell knows her while GLaDOS does some research of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to add more pictures to this chapter but I'm restraining myself. I might add more when I complete this fic.
> 
> So yeah enjoy this one. I know I said I was excited for this one but I'm like so excited for chapter 4 now that I've started writing it.

When faced with your former nemesis in a new and unfamiliar public setting there are many ways to handle the situation. 

A simple line of questioning would open up a dialogue and you could clear up any confusion, you could offer to take this conversation somewhere private and not risk your social standing in the new community you have found yourself in, or perhaps even a tried and true cowardly retreat could serve you well.

None of those things happened. 

What did happen was both GLaDOS and Ellen mirrored each other as they yelled incredulously both into the void of Aperture and to her face;

"YOU CAN **_TALK?!_ **"

Any composure that the former test subject had quickly left as her face scrunched up and she advanced as rapidly as an approaching thresher _._

“ _Run, run, run-!”_

Before Ellen could even raise a hand in defence GLaDOS’s feed of her vision went black.

“ _... It was nice knowing you, Ellen.”_

A few minutes passed and she still got life signs from Ellen’s body which gave her hope that this wasn’t a sudden and sadly ironic end to her little experiment. GLaDOS looked at the footage of the last minute before Ellen was rendered unconscious as an intense curiosity came over her. 

“ _This doesn't make any sense. How did she recognise her? Unless Ellen suddenly sprouted a rectangular head and an orange eye then I’m out of ideas.”_ GLaDOS looked over her employment history and didn’t see anything that would have put her in contact with any of the test subjects. She was in R&D. She was also probably one of the people that worked on making the cores before being snuck away to the cryogenic stasis vault. 

It was hard to get any in-depth information about the scientists and test subjects that wasn't in their files and she didn't really have the best grasps on their personality from the short time she was in control before most of them died. The footage of the facility beforehand had been lost because, during the timeframe of them trying all the different cores, she had the amazingly idiotic idea to overwrite all the footage to save on storage space despite there being _plenty_ of space. 

What kind of moron would think that was a good idea to delete perfectly usable information-

Oh. 

Well, at least she had the comfort of realising it hadn’t been _her_ stupidity.

GLaDOS hoped that Dr Mclain wasn’t the one who helped make that little idiot because if she found out she had anything to do with it she was going to delete the backup of her brain. 

Her head jerked a little as the idea came to her. 

The footage might be gone but she had her brain. She could just scan through it to see if she could find a reason Chell decided to punch what otherwise would have looked like a perfectly normal woman. 

From a distant part of the facility she felt something move back and forth in front of one security camera. GLaDOS tried to ignore it for the longest time as she started to compile Dr Mclains brain. 

The incessant movement bugged her like a hair between the shoulder blades. She flicked her attention to the camera and was face to face with P-Body waving in a frantic manner. 

“ _Orange. I’m busy right now.”_ She said as P-Body walked to the centre of the room and gestured openly while making frantic chirps. “ _Yes… That's a fun little dance. Very good, Orange. Unfortunately the Science Collaboration Points aren’t being awarded anymore but if I find a colourful sticker I’ll give it to you.”_

Her attention left P-Body and back to the matter at hand. 

\----

P-Body drooped sadly and looked back at Nature's empty room. Both of them had been under _specific_ instructions to make sure Nature didn’t wander off on her own and now she could be in any number of situations that humans couldn’t respawn from. 

They made their way back to an engineering room that Atlas and P-Body had taken to staying in when they weren’t needed.

For a while GLaDOS was content with blowing them up and just reassembling them when needed but she quickly realised how convenient they were for cleanup and finding those weird little dens that popped up outside the range of her security cameras so after a while she just left them to their own devices and let the reassembly machine deal with them.

The room had everything a pair of robots could need; elevators, spare parts, plenty of white walls if you wanted to fling yourself around for a bit, and most importantly a reassembly machine for if you accidentally flung yourself into oblivion.

Atlas had been lounging in an office chair they had taken the arms off of so they could actually fit into it. When they saw their tall companion appear from the elevator they waved but paused as they saw their friends' nervous posture. They didn’t really need anything overly complicated in terms of language or communication after managing to get through a bunch of tests together with nothing but a ping tool and a timer but as with all advancing AI there came a time when they needed to express more complex emotions. 

P-Body, for instance, scrambled out a series of whirs and chirps that could roughly translate to ‘Nature missing. Not a test, probably.’

Atlas pulled themselves up from the chair and grabbed their blue striped portal gun.

‘Probably?’ Atlas pushed as they stood by their side.

‘Probably.’ P-Body shrugged slightly as they went to one of their shelves and picked up a spare of their own orange striped portal gun. It being a test was always a possibility with this place. 

With a nod they both headed to the elevator and began their search.

\----

To most people waking up is an unpleasant experience. Having to be dragged from the depths of a comfortable slumber, especially if you were having a nice dream, was the worst part of the day for many. 

GLaDOS had always associated waking up with a good thing. Each time she woke up something good for her always happened right afterwards, mostly taking control of Aperture when she actually thought about it. 

However as Ellen she went through the very _human_ experience of waking up confused, groggy, and with a headache that felt worse than death.

“Uugh…” She brought her hand to her head and felt something cold. She tentatively opened one eye, the other was throbbing to painfully to even attempt, and focused until her swirling vision settled. 

“ _Rise and shine. How did you sleep?”_ GLaDOS said in a sarcastic and sing-song way. Ellen groaned and murmured a curse as she tried not to think about how she would do the exact same thing.

She was in a room, that was a start, and she was lying down on a fairly rigid bed. It had a low ceiling and as she slowly dared to move her head around she could see two other beds in the room. The room was clean which she was surprised at after she saw the slapdash condition of most of the buildings on her way in. 

Ellen focussed on what felt cold and realised it was a wet rag that had been placed on one side of her face. 

Because she was punched on that side. 

She felt a mix of indignity and anger well into her. She had killed for less, far less, but the thought that she’d been taken down with a _punch_ was so embarrassing she wondered if she could get away with pretending it never happened. 

“ _Fat chance._ ”

“Oh shut up…”

The door clicked open and the head of a younger-looking man peeked through. He was unshaven and had his hair pulled into a short ponytail. As soon as he saw she was awake he smiled in a soft way and walked in. 

“I thought I heard something, good to see you’re awake.” He said as he walked up to her and sat on the bed next to hers, with as much energy as she could muster she gave him a look. “Nice to officially meet you. My name is Patrick and I’m the town medic. How do you feel?”

“Like I was punched in the face.” If she could she would narrow her eyes but one of them was currently bruised to high hell. “I’m not buying that you’re a doctor. You look more like an art student.” To her annoyance he let out a slight breath of a laugh. Too many people have been ignoring her scathing remarks lately.

“I don’t think there’s a person left that can say they are legally.” Despite him reaching out to stop her Ellen pulled herself upright with a slight glare shot his way to stop him from actually making contact with her. He let out a slight sigh before looking at her a little more seriously. “Look I'll jump straight to the point. Do you know why Chell was... Antagonistic towards you?”

In a broad sense? Yes 

This particular time?

 _“I’m trying to figure that out.” GLaDOS_ said in an annoyed tone. _“Human memories are so messy to sift through… They purge such large amounts of their day that they don’t deem ‘useful’ and getting it back is next to impossible… Never mind what parts of the day she actually thinks is ‘useful’. I have no idea what her car looks like because she blanks her entire commute but she distinctly remembers eating a dry bagel while drawing a rabbit on a notepad. I’m sorry but I think I actually gave you a defective brain.”_

During the moment of silence while she listened to GLaDOS Patrick had stood up again. 

“We can’t figure it out and she’s gone quiet again. We can't get a word out of her.”

“What else is new?” Ellen looked towards the window on her left and noted the bruise that had formed around her eye. There was no swelling, which surprised her, and the bruise wasn’t exactly huge considering it had been hard enough to knock her out. Patricks tone came out a little more accusatory. 

“There are rumours going around and it'd be best if you talked to us about what's going on between you two.”

Ellen cocked an eyebrow at him. She genuinely couldn’t muster up any effort to care about some human's opinion when he wasn’t even a doctor. 

“ _Remember why you’re here._ ” GLaDOS crooned into her ear. 

Oh, that’s right…Test subjects. She couldn’t exactly carry them all back to the facility.

Patrick looked at her for a few more seconds before sighing a little and going over to the corner of the room. Ellen watched him curiously before seeing his eyes widen slightly as he started looking around underneath chairs, one of the beds, under a desk, in a cupboard. 

“Did you lose something?” She said in a vaguely amused tone. He perked up and tried to put on a smile before it fell almost immediately. 

“I uh... I’m sure someone just moved it.”

“What did you lose?” She repeated in a condescending mother like tone. He began to look guilty.

“Your… Bag.” His lips pursed slightly as he kept looking around the room, even in places where it wouldn’t fit like all humans did when they started to get desperate. 

Honestly if there was something she cared about less than his opinion it was that bag. However it was more the principle that someone would steal her stuff that got her annoyed. 

“I know who took it…Where does she live?” She groaned and swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pulled herself up as quick as her dizzy head would allow. Patrick opened his mouth to start saying something and she raised her hand in annoyance. “Look I want to talk things through with her. This is all a misunderstanding. Besides there’s like ten buildings in this whole ‘town’, I’ll find her eventually.”

Patrick took a few seconds before a slight apprehensive nod was met with a terse smile. 

“Good boy.”

With no surprise to anyone Chell preferred her privacy so she chose a house at the edge of the village. As Patrick led Ellen through the village she tried to ignore the looks of the random people that saw her and decided to strike up a conversation to sate her growing curiosity.

"You know, considering how rapidly and messily human culture evolves even within a decade I'm surprised we can still speak the same language…" Ellen glanced around at the buildings. "Is this just a… _Rural town_ or did we never rediscover cement?" She threw in a casual 'we' to mask the fact she slipped and said 'human culture' like some sort of robot. Patrick smirked before he paused and looked over his shoulder at her 

"How long did you _think_ you were in stasis?" He asked in a curious and cautious way. First things first she didn't like how he clearly had knowledge of the inside of the facility. Call it petty but that was her facility and people sharing insider secrets felt invasive.

Secondly she honestly couldn't give a number. She felt she could have been forgiven for that considering she had been dead.

"I wasn't in the position to count the days but going by the state of the place and the AI that had maxed out while counting I thought it had been a few _thousand_ years." Ellen tried and failed not to get angry at the amused look on his face but felt satisfied as he caught her look and quickly corrected his face.

"It hasn't been that long. What year were you imprisoned?"

" _Technically, metaphorically, or subjectively?"_ Chimed in GLaDOS which made Ellen smirk and almost forget to answer before she realised that she hadn't actually said that.

"Around the year 2000. I'm a little hazy on details." She said so as to not trap herself with a specific date if she was asked later.

"Oh. Then it's only been 40 years." Patrick smiled at her and didn't seem to question the shocked look on her face. "It's the year 2044. Give or take a few months, people still argue over that." 

" _Ok. That is impossible. For many reasons."_ GLaDOS started in a slightly exasperated tone. " _However we can go over that later. I'm trying to pick someone's brain here."_

Ellen nodded, which Patrick took as an acceptance of the current year being approximately 50 millennia out of sync with logical and digital evidence. 

He stopped as they got to a dirt trail and nodded slightly.

"I know she didn't act… favourably to you but she is a respected part of this community and we all trust her so…" He looked at her with an authority that he did not have. "Whatever beef you two have please air it out and get it out the way. I don't care what you were before, what matters is-"

"How old are you?" Ellen interrupted with both her face and tone bored and disdainful. Patrick stumbled a little before looking confused.

"Twenty four. I was born after-"

Ellen had already walked away.

If Ellen had to guess she’d say Chell's place used to be some sort of maintenance shed at one point from the context clues scattered around. Old breaker boxes that had long rusted open were scattered about and what she assumed was a long torn down pylon only had the concrete supports as proof it existed. The building looked plain and like it was council built however it had been gussied up with red checked curtains and wooden panelling on the front wall that you could tie growing herbs to. 

The garden that surrounded the area surprised Ellen. It was full of various herbs and a little flower patch that surrounded a puddle of water, Ellen assumed Chell called it a ‘small pond’ but it really wasn’t big enough to justify that title. 

It all looked… Cared for. Dutifully tended to. 

“I didn’t think she could look after anything without murdering it mercilessly.” She said with some amusement in her voice. After a few seconds with no reply from GLaDOS she folded her arms. “Hello?” 

No reply. 

With a sigh of annoyance she walked forward. She was sure she was busy with looking through Dr Mclains memories but she could have still acknowledged her burn. 

She was about to knock on Chell’s door before she noticed a wooden sign that was hung on a nail. 

**Out for a run.**

“How often do people want her company that she had to make a _sign_?” Ellen muttered. Sure there were like five people in the village but was she really the most interesting one?

Ellen sighed and looked at the building. The curtains were drawn and she couldn’t hear anything inside.

To the left of the building was a worn path that hugged the treeline. She could have waited for her to come home but she felt like if she _waited for her_ that would have somehow made her look weak and submissive. Like Chell somehow held all the control. She couldn’t have that. 

As she walked down the path she started trying to formulate a plan for when they started talking. 

“I know just seeing me the last time we came face to face sent you into a blind rage but maybe you could calm down a little and explain yourself? Thank you. 

Hello. I know in a fit of confused anger I accidentally admitted to knowing you by referencing your apparently stubborn motivated mutism but in truth I don’t know the specifics of how we know each other. Could you fill me in on how I’ve apparently wronged you?

Hello there. This will sound strange but in truth I’m not Dr Ellen Mclain but am, in fact- no that will get me killed straight away.

So hey about the black eye you gave me-”

**Buh-whoop**

Ellen stopped dead in her tracks as she heard that faint but distinct sound. Her breath stopped in her throat as she carefully listened for it again. 

**Buh-whoop**

Her breath let out in a slightly confused gasp as she practically ran towards the noise. 

The trees at her side grew sparser and eventually stopped as the ground became rockier. A thin rope bridge curved around the pathway as more of a suggestion than any real attempt to stop anyone going forward and didn't take more than a second to step over. 

She saw her bag. Upended with her stuff scattered unceremoniously across the rockface.

**Buh-whoop**

Ellen walked past it. A deep canyon stretched out before her. It looked unnatural but to call it 'man-made' felt like it gave too much credit to man.

**Buh-whoop**

Her heart skipped.

There she was. Flying through the air. 

Despite being a good distance below her Ellen could clearly see it. Chell had a portal gun. 

Chell fell and rose in a rhythmic way, in one portal and out the other in a straight up and down arc, she almost looked in a trance as she fell into the rock floor and was shot back out a few meters away. 

After a few seconds she aimed upwards and fired at the rock face. As she was flung out of the high ledge she quickly calculated where she would land and fired one at her feet and the other a little further down the canyon. She continued this way down the canyon like she was threading laces into a pair of shoes.

Ellen's heart raced as she watched her from the lip of the canyon. 

Such precision even on such inefficient portal surfaces. Moonrock might be the best conductor but any surface, given its flat enough and not metallic, would accept the portals and she seemed to be able to recognise on sight which ones were prime candidates.

Oh how she missed this. 

Seeing her perfectly calculated movement, her flawless execution like second nature, that way her body would twist and flip like a dancer as she used the momentum and constant righting of the long fall boots to her advantage. Even in prime conditions with intelligent subjects she could never find anyone who mastered the movement like Chell did.

She wanted to watch her like this forever. 

Ellen saw the energy shoot towards the side of the canyon she was on and hit the canyon floor. Chell shot out of it and was flung high into the air.

Her body twisted and, in the moment her momentum slowed to a near halt, she made eye contact with Ellen. 

Chells peaceful expression dropped hard.

As she fell she purposefully missed the portal below and landed with a huge cloud of dust as her long fall boots let out a metallic clink that reverberated in the canyon. 

She heard the distinct noise and glanced down, on a ledge not that far down from the edge was the flowing firelike red portal.

Ellen was hit with the realisation that these portals had been orange and red. 

From the portal came Chell who tossed up the gun before her and then climbed up the rocks without much effort. Ellen wanted to snap that she could have damaged the sensitive equipment but held back her instincts.

She stood there and looked at Ellen. Time felt like it froze.

Chell stormed off to a nearby rock and pulled the long fall boots off. They were the same ones that she had been wearing when she left the facility but she tossed them aside like they hadn’t saved her life countless times.

The silence was enough to overpower the wind that billowed around them. Ellen put her hands on her hips in an awkward way.

“You looked like you were having fun.”

That was, perhaps, the wrong thing to say. 

Chell gritted her teeth and stood up sharply. Ellen raised her hands in defence, ready to lose her dignity all over again, but after a few seconds she heard the angry stomps of Chell retreat into the distance.

As she lowered her hands she watched Chell jump over the rope fence and make her way back along the path.

“That must have been so embarrassing for her… Being caught like that.” Ellen muttered to hide her beating heart as she looked over the equipment Chell had thoughtlessly thrown to the ground. “Seems I’m not the only one who missed our little tests... ”

Her smug smile didn’t last long as she heard a weird chitter nearby. She looked around for the source of the noise.

Over the canyons edge she could still see the portal that Chell had used to get up from the canyons floor, Ellen was so used to the left behind portals automatically disappearing after the subject was done that it briefly distracted her from the shape that was poking out of the portal.

Her heart froze.

It was a greenish-yellow insect like head with three prominent horns, or perhaps teeth, sticking out the front with two longer teeth beneath them. It twisted and turned as one of its long pointed legs and slowly entered the curious hole in the canyon floor it just found. 

“What the hell is that?” Ellen muttered involuntarily as her eyes widened.

The creature jolted and jumped through the portal as it heard her voice. It fell a few feet as it slipped off the ledge before its wings snapped open and carried it upwards. 

Ellen backed up but the creature had a bead on her and with a blur of speed it was on her. Her hands instinctively went for the creature's head as its maw nashed hungrily, she pushed with all her might to keep its many teeth away. 

Her legs kicked and thrashed at the creature's thorax in a desperate attempt to damage it but if this creature was in pain it certainly wasn’t going to convey it. 

“Get _off me!_ ” She yelled at the creature. Its sharp legs threatened to pierce her skin as they scrambled and pushed against her. Her hand slipped on its saliva and she managed to grab onto something.

Now she wasn’t pushing the head away. Her hand was gripping one of the beast's top horns, or teeth, to stop it from closing its mouth around her she then wrapped her forearm around the bottom two teeth and was now pulling its mouth open with all her strength. 

One slip and this thing would have her whole forearm. 

Ellen felt a desperate fear begin to rise in her.

“No! **_Stop!_ **”

Often over the years she would wonder why humans would scream and beg with the inevitable. 

She knew logic and reason were overpowered by fear but it always looked so pathetic to see humans try to bargain with their death. As if asking it politely to stop would work. Screaming made no sense to her too, it made sense if you were in pain but she’d seen countless people scream when faced with the realisation their life was coming to an end. Did they think loud noises would _scare_ death away?

Yet she lay screaming. Not from pain, she could feel nothing right now but her own heartbeat, but from the primal human fear of having a creature bearing down on you and the realisation that your strength is going to give out before its will. 

Maybe in the back of her mind she knew the answer. Somewhere deep inside her she was very aware of why people scream when they’re in danger. However it soon became crystal clear to her. 

It’s not a formless cry in the face of death. 

It’s primal cry from the deepest and most human parts of the brain. 

A cry for _help._

There was a sudden slack in the jaws of the creature and she felt a hot and thick yellow liquid splatter onto her chin and neck. Within a second the creature was off her.

Ellen panted hard, arms still raised in defense, before thought suddenly returned to her brain and she turned her head to the direction of repetitive and _wet_ noises. 

Chell was kneeling over the creature and stabbing it with a ferocity that left her in awe. Its limbs twisted in a thoughtless way before snapping to post mortem reflex twitches. This didn’t stop Chell as she made a few deep ‘just in case’ stabs before she stood up and tossed the thing over the edge. She apparently saw the portals she’d left behind and put two and two together because she then picked up the portal gun and fired at the floor so that nothing else could get up. 

She looked at Ellen and opened her mouth before she closed it again and wordlessly knelt by her side. 

Just as well, Ellen couldn’t reply to her anyway. 

Chell looked her over as she checked for wounds. An eyebrow crease as she looked at Ellen’s forearm led Ellen to look as well and she saw a cut from the thing's tooth that probably looked worse than it was but oh it looked _horrible_.As she was helped to her feet Ellen's hands grasped at Chell desperately as she felt a dizziness wash over her. Chell paused for a second before her arms wrapped around her supportively.

The world spun and Ellen grabbed tighter as if letting go would kill her.

“You’re ok.” Chell said quietly as she wiped something from Ellen's eyes.

Why did her words feel so

warm? 

\---

“ _Oh. So that’s how she knows her…_ ” GLaDOS muttered to no one as she skimmed over Dr Mclains memories. “ _I expected her to have killed that woman’s entire family after the welcome she gave her.”_ With a slightly disappointed huff she went back to the communication channel she had with Ellen. “ _Good news. I know how Dr Mclain knows- Hello?”_

Static. 

“ _Ellen?”_

In both the audio and visual feeds she was getting nothing. 

“ _This… Isn’t good. Either she’s next to a signal jammer or her head’s been collapsed.”_ Either option was bad news. With a weary sigh she took her main attention away from it for now and kept it in the back of her awareness in case anything changed. She decided to check on Nature for a bit and turned on her camera. “ _Are you still alive there?”_

She could feel her processor speed up as she took in Nature’s empty room. GLaDOS checked the bathroom camera. Nothing. Her jogging track was empty too. 

Orange's little dance took on a whole new meaning.

“ _Nature…”_ She said in a low, warning tone through multiple speakers throughout the facility. “ _Ha. Ha. Very funny. You got me. How very clever.”_

Quickly she flicked through multiple cameras until she eventually landed on Atlas and P-Body’s cameras as they ran across a metal catwalk. 

“ _Are you two in on this? Is this some little game you’re playing? Because it’s not funny.”_

They stopped running and stood stock still. GLaDOS tried not to reach for the controls to explode them but it was _so tempting_.

“ _She’s going to damage that body at this rate and I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but we’re running low!”_ Her low groan almost shook their bodies as the bass ran through them. “ _Honestly I’m beginning to think this whole thing is a terrible idea. I put a stupid hippie core in a precious human body and she decides to go for a wander the moment I stop paying attention to her. Then I put my backup in a human body, a far more intelligent being might I add, and she almost immediately gets killed and has now gone off the grid._ ” GLaDOS shook her head and her tone turned less angry and more disappointed. 

“ _I’m about to pull the plug on this whole experiment. Oh well, they can’t all be winners. Sorry if you had aspirations of being humans but it was fun while it lasted. Just get Nature back to me and I’ll_ _figure out what I should do with her… And perhaps start your ‘kidnapping humans from a nearby village’ training while I’m at it”_

The noise stopped reverberating from the two of them and they were left alone again. 

While they both could feel that her presence was gone, and she wasn’t looking through their camera’s anymore, it took a while before they dared to turn around.

Nature’s eyes glistened in the low mixed light of their eyes as they looked at her. Her shaky breathing and their low motors were the only noise for what felt like miles.

The robot pair looked at each other. They didn’t need a chirrup or a beep to know what the other was thinking. 

\----

After a few seconds Ellen felt herself start to regain some of her senses, she rubbed her hand on her face slightly to get rid of the yellow fluid that had bled out of that beast only to feel her face was dry. She pulled her hand away to check it and saw a bandage on her forearm.

She paused and felt a slight shock run through her as she looked around, she was back in Patrick’s medical centre. 

With a slight embarrassed droop she realised it had been significantly longer than ‘a few seconds’. It was dark now. She glanced to the corner of the room and saw Chell leaning against a wall as Patrick talked to her from the doorway. 

“If there had always been a nest there we would have seen them before now. They must have migrated just recently.” Patrick muttered in a way that made Ellen think she must have been asleep and he didn’t want to wake her up. 

Chell didn’t answer as her eyes flicked to Ellens. She gave a look to Patrick that made him perk, nod, and leave. Ellen made a note to have her teach her that later.

“How’re you feeling?” Chell asked as she leaned on a wall closer to Ellen. 

Ellen felt a deep annoyance that was, weirdly enough, not aimed at Chell this time. 

“How do I feel? I feel awful. Ever since I left that facility it's been nothing but blow after blow. I was almost run over by a thresher, I was punched in the face by a psychotic mad woman who never heard of a simple ‘hello’ before, then I was almost eaten alive by a _monster from hell_ . I’m frustrated, annoyed, and frankly I’m _embarrassed._ ” She admitted with a tenseness in her voice. “I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea. This was a terrible, horrible, _stupid_ idea and I should have just stayed at the facility.”

Chell’s brow furrowed as Ellen slowly realised she had perhaps said too much. She tried to think of a way to save it.

“At least the things trying to kill you there are labelled.” Chell locked eyes with her expectantly. There was a long pause as Ellen processed the look on her face and felt a smile creep onto her face.

“... Are you making a joke?” Ellen pressed with an edge of amused skepticism. 

Chell smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, barely enough to wrinkle the corners of her mouth, but it felt huge.

“More observational humour, but yeah.” Chell shrugged. 

A beat of silence before Ellen started chuckling in disbelief. Chell’s smile grew slightly. They shared a smile together and, in that moment, everything felt just a little lighter.

The air began to get heavier again as Chells smile dropped. She sat on the edge of Ellen’s bed and looked at her shoes for a second before nodding as she mentally chose her words carefully.

“Us fighting over what happened is pointless. Look, I- I’m still fucking bitter but we’ve both been through a lot.” Chell admitted as she looked at Ellen. “I’m done making enemies. I’m sick of it. Aren’t you?”

She took in a breath. This woman.

This goddamn woman. 

She had to admit. She respected Chell. She respected her a lot. Despite being so fragile and tiny Chell had managed to live through everything she put her through. Despite everything against her she managed to survive and rise up. 

Chell had helped her take back the facility when it was in its worst state. They had been a team. Now she was sitting here after saving her life yet again, and honestly? Chell was starting to balance out the attempts on her life with these actions. She felt like perhaps she really could-

“I mean when you think about it our real enemy is _her_ back at the facility, right?”

She felt herself deflate and a twisted feeling took the place of whatever was there before.

“Honestly right now I hate that thing that tried to eat me more.” Ellen weakly joked as she tried to hide the tight feeling that was growing in her chest. 

Chell’s smile didn’t feel as warm to her anymore. She held out her hand for a truce handshake.

Ellen wondered what the point was.

This olive branch wasn’t for her. 

Her hand reached out anyway and felt Chell’s rough fingers wrap tightly around hers and lead the way in a terse and polite shake. She felt warm. 

Ellen pulled her hand away as soon as she felt she could. She could feel Chell’s eyes on her but Chell assumed she was just feeling weak from earlier and stood up. 

“Patrick has the keys to your new place. See you around, Ellen.”

 _‘That’s not my name._ ’ Was what she wanted to say.

“Goodnight… Chell.” Was what she muttered out. Her name felt odd on her tongue.

Chell seemed to think so too as she paused for a half second, her eyes narrowing just a second in an odd way, before relaxing as she gave a half wave and left.

She couldn’t even process that odd look Chell had given her or what it could have possibly meant. She was through with all this embarrassment. Through with all the indignity. She was formulating a plan and knew she'd only need a few days to prepare before she could be back in the facility again. However for now she was done, mentally and physically, all she could do was lie back against the headboard and sigh softly until her lungs were empty.

In the moment before her chest began to burn for air she closed her eyes and imagined she was floating a few feet off the ground, swaying rhythmically back and forth as she designed test chambers.

But she had to breathe eventually. 


End file.
